The man, whom the soldier met in hell yesterday, was one of those moaning and suffering sleepless with bleeding wounds. The sight was a dream-like, dim vision to the eyes of the soldier.
The man, whom the soldier met in hell yesterday, was one of those moaning and suffering sleepless with bleeding wounds. The sight was a dream-like, dim vision to the eyes of the soldier. The man looked like lifting his feeble hand and trying to bless him. The place, where the soldier stood was a large tunnel constructed by countless titanic wars waged for ages on earth. As the man presented the soldier with a lifeless smile, the soldier could know that the place he stood was none other than hell. The soldier experienced a grave silence in the place without the firing of artillery, the noise of gunshots, and no blood dripping from the upper ground. Nevertheless, the soldier wondered why the man was grief-stricken.
The man began to narrate his tale to the soldier.
Before the man met his doom, he missed out on many opportunities in his life. He looked for the most beautiful thing on earth. The beauty that he looked for, was neither the calmness in a woman’s eye nor her neatly-braided hair. The man knew that such beauty was not permanent, for it disappears soon. The man says that the beauty was nothing other than the truth. Although he found it, at last, he failed to inform his fellow beings. The truth which he discovered was the horror of wars. Since he did not disclose the truth, the warring armies were ecstatic with the things they spoiled in the land of their enemies. Being discontent with the destruction, they grew angry and continued fighting against their foes. If he had disclosed the secret called 'truth', his brethren would have been happy. But the truth, which few dared to speak, was the horror of wars. Though nations set up their armies to protect themselves, few soldiers were ready to speak out against their greedy governments and criticize their act of pushing the society far away from progress.
The man further tells the soldier that he was courageous and wise. Still, he would not need to watch the world when it moved backward and bother the armies marching into the unwalled cities. Being himself a soldier, the man would wash the wheels of war chariots with pure, sweet water brimming in the wells, when human blood had clogged them. Tinged with a little poetry, the man also tells the soldier that sometimes he used 'truth' to clean the blood-stained wheels, for only truth is pristine in the world.
The man tells the soldier that he had even seen the foreheads of certain soldiers bleeding, but without wounds. The listener to the man's narration must have wondered how those foreheads had bled without wounds! But his hint here is the trauma that persists with the soldiers even after the end of wars.
Now the man discloses a secret to the listening soldier:
"I am the enemy you killed, my friend"
In fact, it is the soldier that killed this man on the battlefield yesterday. Though it is dark now in hell, the man recognizes the soldier and recalls a scene on earth. The scene depicts the soldier frowning at him, taking his rifle, and jabbing the bayonet into him. The man could have defended himself from the soldier's attack, but his hands were slow and cold.
The scene appears in 'Strange meeting', a poem by the English poet Wilfred Owen.
Wilfred Owen, a soldier enlisted in the British army in the First World War, was a poet. The twenty-five-year-old youth was killed in action just a week before the signing of the armistice which ended the war. Oblivious to the loss of a young soldier cum poet, the church bells were chiming their joy when the First World War ended.
While writing the poem 'Strange Meeting' Owen must have visualized the enemy he killed and envisioned his meeting with him in hell after he too was shot dead.
It seems posterity will read more such poems as long as wars persist on the planet.